Lecture by Prof. Carsten Sinner (University of Leipzig)
Galician on the Río de la Plata: Influence of a minorised migrant language on Rioplatense Spanish
- Wednesday, 11 February 2026 at 6 p.m.
- SR 33.3.082
Compared to other language contact situations involving Spanish, contact between Galician and Spanish – two closely related Iberian Romance languages – has been little researched to date. Knowledge about the contact between Galician and Spanish in America is particularly limited. While language contact between Argentine Spanish and immigrant languages such as Italian, English, French, German and even Danish has been studied extensively, the contact between the "sister languages" Galician and Spanish has remained virtually unnoticed.
The lecture explores the question of why Galician has so far attracted little interest from Argentine or Uruguayan linguistics or Hispanic linguistics. This lack of interest is discussed in the context of cultural prejudices against Galicians in the Río de la Plata region.
Concrete examples of the linguistic influence of Galician on the Spanish of Argentina and Uruguay will then be presented. The presentation is based on a systematic evaluation of the existing linguistic literature and on several empirical studies.
An event organised as part of the Arqus Bottom Up Initiative "Beyond majority languages: research dissemination and teaching promotion of minority and minoritised languages in Europe" in cooperation with the Iberoamerica Institute Graz.